Night Photo Shooting
Almost
everyone has a point-and-shoot camera nowadays, with cheap options
available from some of the biggest makers in the camera industry, today
we are going to address a common problem we see in the paranormal
community by understanding how point-and-shoot cameras and DSLR
cameras work in regard to night shooting, with and without flash.
Point and Shoot Vs. DLSR – what is the difference?
Point-and-shoot cameras, sometimes known as compact cameras, are
different from DSLR cameras because they usually don’t contain a mirror
inside the body of the camera that reflects the image from the lens into
the viewfinder.
Modern compact cameras have done away with, for the most part, the
small square viewfinders we used to have on our camera and replaced them
with large LCD screens that give us the same view through the lens as
what our image sensor is about to record.
In the old days we would look through the viewfinder lens, line up our
shot, and press the button, and the lens would open allowing the film
to be exposed and thus take the photo, the principle is still the same
for compact cameras, but now everything is digital.
DSLR cameras work on the same principles, but usually have a mirror
within the body of the camera that reflects the image from the primary
lens into the viewfinder, giving us the exact image our lens sees
instead of the image the small square viewfinder used to see, although,
this is now changing with a range of DSLR cameras having both the
viewfinder and an LCD option on the back.
DLSR is, of course, the superior camera over compact point-and-shoot,
with the ability to change lenses as needed, adjustments for better
focus, filters and a range of other added benefits including the ability
to shoot images in RAW formats.
A megapixel, by definition, is “one million pixels”, when we look at a
camera it may say something like “3.2 megapixels” as a selling point.
This usually indicates that the camera is capable of taking a photo with
that amount of pixels via its photo sensitive-electronics, known as CMOS
sensors, or “complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor”, whereas other
cameras may use a CCD or “charge-coupled device” to obtain its image.
What does that mean?
Basically, the more megapixels a camera has the greater the detail the
photo will possess once processed through the Bayer filter arrangement of
the camera.
The Bayer filter arrangement is a sensor covered in a patterned mosaic of
colours, green, red and yellow, the camera interpolates these colours
through the demosaicing process to create the end final image – so, if
you have a lower megapixel range camera, you will find a greater
amount of fuzziness and blur in photos that are taken and saved that
contain large areas of one colour, or are saved in processed smaller
files like JPEG.
This brings us to our next point – how you save your images for
review. The majority of point-and-shoot cameras do not give you an
option for saving your files, the standard is usually JPEG or the
company's own set standard file system, which if you are taking photos
of birthday parties or Uncle Bob's 4th marriage, are not a problem, but
for us in the paranormal community, it can indeed be a problem.
JPEG, whilst being a great space-saving device is also guilty of being
compressive, this means that you give up small amounts of quality
and clarity for a smaller file size (I touched on a similar thing back
in my article about WAV Vs. MP3 –
http://www.eidolonparanormal.net/wavvsmp3.htm).
JPEG is simply not suitable if you are going to shoot in an area with large blocks of one colour, eg.
Gaols or Asylums where there will be large areas of walling all painted
the same...why? - because JPEG during its compression will blur lines
and cause unnatural colour shifts because of its need to compress the
data.
TIFF
(Tagged Image File Format) is another standard file format used for
digital cameras, It has greater ability than JPEG because it does not
compress in the same way and allows a greater amount of colour to be
sampled in a photo, thus reducing sharpness loss and blur.
Its
downfalls are that it can be compressed through lossless compression in
Black & White photography, and it is also not a popular enough
format that all types of photo software on a PC support it as a standard
format, still its performance far outweighs that of the JPEG.
RAW
files, a standard file-saving format on digital DSLR, should really be
the industry standard in the paranormal community (if we had an
industry). In essences a RAW files is equivalent to the negative from
the old 35mm days of photography.
The photos take up a large amount of space on the camera's memory card
which is really its only downfall, for the good with a RAW file far
outweighs the bad.
RAW files can essentially be seen as unprocessed photos (like the
negative), they are raw data collected at the time the photo was taken,
they contain more detail, have a wider range of colours, and unless you
have filters or pre-set camera filters on your camera they show you
exactly what is before you, with no compression. The photo can then be
saved to another format afterwards if need be.
So why is this essential?
Photo source: http://bagaimana-photoshop.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/raw-file.html
It allows the reviewer of the photo to see what was taken at the time
of the photo with no compression blur, no colour filtering, and no
tampering with the photo, coupled with the EXIF file data, one can see if
the photo has been manipulated to include a ghostly image or other
objects.
So
the combination of high megapixels and a RAW file format allows us,
as investigators, to see clearly what is in the photo, without
compressed lines, blurs or colour changes, combined with the metadata,
or EXIF file, the camera type and conditions in was taken under, which
is well and good, but there are other important things we need to
discuss to give you a fuller “picture”.
The majority of paranormal investigations take place at night, or in
darker than normal conditions, most people that use a point-and-shoot
camera in these low-light situations have their camera set on automatic,
which lets the camera choose its lens and shooting settings based on the
conditions its sensor concludes are appropriate for the conditions.
This is all well and good, generally, most cameras will sense the low
light and turn on the flash, which is also great, but, what they also do
is set the lens to remain open for a longer period of time, it does
this so the camera can get more light to the sensor to allow greater
detail of the scene in front of it if the sensor is smaller than 43.3mm
squared you will get an undetailed photo, (camera with a 43.3mm squared
chip or higher are set for low light shooting)
You may have noticed if you are shooting with point-and-shoot cameras
in low light conditions that lighting in the scene has a “tail” or
trail” to the photo (insert sample), this is because of the long time
the lens is open allowing more light in, and that your hands shake or
your body moves (most people are unaware of simple movements their body
makes continuously) or worse still you are walking as you take the
photo.
Buy yourself a cheap tripod, attach your camera to it, press the
button and in low-light situations, even with a point-and-shoot camera,
presto, no-more tails and trails.
For those with an SLR or DSLR camera, you are at a distinct advantage
over those without, as you can change your ISO setting manually to let
more light in (but remember the tripod is important).
What is ISO?
ISO in traditional photography was the indicator of how sensitive the
film used was for light, the lower the number the lower sensitivity the
film is and the finer the grain was in the photograph.
The same standard has been brought into digital photography, so the higher
ISO setting you use the better it will be in darker settings, the trade
off is however that the picture will be grainier – there is of course a
way around this that we learnt via going to visit an observatory in the
nearby town of Stockport.
Star photographers spend their time shooting at the night sky, a pitch
black background with tiny pinpricks of light they wish to get on
camera, so obviously because of the dark setting they would up their ISO
as high as they can, the trade-off being the orange and red dot
graininess (known as noise) that comes with it, to get around this and
maintain clear night sky photos, they found that cooling the sensor in
the camera reduced the background “noise”...most used inter-coolers that
can drop their sensor to minus temperatures, those that couldn’t afford
that made crudely designed coolers out of esky's where the camera sat
immersed inside ice (we don't recommend you try this yourself).
So to summarise all of the above, and add in a few tips from our investigation experiences.
Buy a tripod, and use it for all night photography shoots.
If you can afford one buy a DSLR camera.
If using a “point and shoot” camera, set it to night shot – use a tripod.
If using a DSLR camera set your saves to RAW files.
Buy cameras with high Megapixel ratings – we recommend over 12 megapixels, anything less is insufficient.
Try to keep your camera cool.
keep your lens clean – a lens cleaning kit can be bought at most camera retailers.
Set your DSLR ISO as high as you can to allow more light to the sensor.
I
am sure there are plenty of things I have missed in this article, and I
may make adjustments as I remember them (or get reminded of them)...
If you start adopting these simple protocols for your night shooting,
you will find a host of anomalies you once had will no longer appear,
thus making any anomalies you catch there after more likely to be
something of paranormal nature
Happy Photo-shooting!
(please
note I did not mention orbs in this article as they are covered in a
different area of the website under
http://www.eidolonparanormal.net/orbsinphotos.htm )
Written by Allen Tiller
www.EidolonParanormal.com.au
© 2013
LEARN MORE
DSLR Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_single-lens_reflex_camera
Shooting tip links
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385965,00.asp
http://digital-photography-school.com/iso-settings
: http://digital-photography-school.com/iso-settings#ixzz2OF5y1l15
©
2007 - 2014 Allen Tiller
www.eidolonparanormal.net
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and have no usage restrictions implied.
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